ver love and "mother" me. Once
Jim and I had settled our affairs in that "interview" I was ordered to
wait for, I should be the black sheep, turned out of the fold.

There was just one reason why I'd have liked to be in the car to bring
Jim back from the station. Knowing Julian-Puck, I was convinced that
despite Father Beckett's presence he'd contrive a chance to thrust some
entering wedge of mischief into Jim Beckett's head. Not that it was
needed! If he'd read the first pages of Jim's letter--the secret
pages--he would have known that. But the night the great news came to
the chateau, he whispered into my ear: "You seem to be taking things
easy. Sure you won't change your mind and bolt with me?--or do you count
on your invincible charm, "_ueber alles_"?"

I didn't even answer. I merely looked. Perhaps he took it for a defiant
look, though Heaven knows it wasn't. I was past defiance. In any case,
such as the look was, it shut him up. And after that the brooding storm
behind his eyes made me wonder (when I'd time to think of it) what
_coup_ he was meditating. There would never be a chance like the chance
at the station before Jim had met me. Julian was sharp enough, dramatic
enough to see that. I pictured him somehow corralling Jim for an
instant, while Father Beckett carried on a conversation of signs with a
worried _porteuse_. Julian would be able to do in an instant as much
damage to a character as most men could do in an hour!

A little added disgust for me on Jim's part, however, what could it
matter? I tried to argue. When a thing is already black, can it be
painted blacker?

Still, I was foolish enough to wish that our good old one-legged soldier
might have stayed to bring Jim home.

* * * * *

Mother Beckett would have compelled me to be with her at the open door
to meet "our darling boy," but that I could not bear. It would be as
trying for him as for me, and I had to spare him the ordeal at any
price.

"Don't make me do that," I begged, with real tears in my voice. "I--I've
set my heart on seeing Jim for the first time alone. He wants it too--I
know he does."

She gazed at me for some long seconds, with the clear blue eyes which
seemed--though only seemed!--to read my soul. In reality she saw quite
another soul than mine. The darling crystallizes to radiant beauty all
souls of those she loves, as objects are crystallized by frost, or by
sparkling salt in a salt mine.